by Platt, Sean
But, in order to continue the series, it must do a few things moving forward.
It MUST be a different story. We don’t want to repeat ourselves. We believe we’ve come up with a great idea that keeps some of the characters you’ve come to know but allows you to see their worlds differently and to experience a new phase of the tale.
It MUST be easier for you to return to. Season Three by its nature was a complicated beast. We had a lot of dots to connect and mysteries to resolve. And the shifting timelines and alternate universe characters made things a bit confusing to wade through. You had to remember details from early on in the series. While we included Author’s Notes and new chapter headings which stated when something happened, (before or after) “the event” on October 15, it was still complex.
But we don’t want you to feel like you’ve gotta remember everything that happened before in order to return for Season Four. Yes, it will make the book more enjoyable, but we’re writing it in a way that’s friendly to newcomers and for those who don’t remember every detail of the story so far.
We want you to be able to jump right in, whether you read the whole series or are just starting it, and enjoy it.
So we’re making what comes next simpler through a more standard timeline, and without all the alternate versions of people running around. The story will still be epic, but it won’t require you to keep your own set of notes just to follow along.
The only problem, and it’s actually a good one to have, is that we can’t tell the rest of the tale in just one season.
So we’re taking Yesterday’s Gone to six seasons.
THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
In other words, if you only wanted to stick around to see what happened on October 15 and see the original mystery resolved, this season should leave you satisfied. If, however, you’re excited to return to the world of Yesterday’s Gone to see what happens next, you’re gonna love that even more.
We’re giving to our readers exactly what we would want for ourselves.
This is my proudest creative accomplishment of 2012 so far, and I’m already looking forward to Season 4 next summer.
In the meantime, if you enjoyed Yesterday’s Gone, please try one of our other series on for size. We’re just now getting started on revisiting the world of Available Darkness. In August, we’ll be re-writing the first book as a proper season, using what we’ve learned in Yesterday’s Gone to tinker with the book without changing actual events that happened. We wanted to make the book better without punishing people who already read it. Then we’re going into Season Two of Available Darkness, which we’re excited to finally return to.
WhiteSpace is our most tightly plotted series to date, a sci-fi paranoia laced character-driven story which some readers have said would be right at home on AMC. ForNevermore is a wonderfully dark fantasy, and the second season I’m looking most forward to seeing. And our anthology series, Dark Crossings, is a home-run for anyone who grew up loving The Twilight Zone, or sees the narrative beauty of the short story form.
Thank you so much for reading.
I look forward to a lifetime of writing for you.
Sean Platt
Follow me on Twitter: @SeanPlatt
Contact David and I at [email protected]
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AUTHOR’S NOTE:
ABOUT THE ENDING: David Wright
Stop here if you’ve not yet read the end of this episode, as this will contain spoilers.
Chapters 15, 16, and 17 weren’t originally in this Episode.
Sean and I had thought about writing these scenes, allowing the audience to catch up with those who’d made it back, but for some reason, we felt it might be better left a mystery. We figured if we ended the episode with a bunch of scenes, it might be a bit too much like those never-ending endings in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
So we opted to just end the book with Luca’s chapter, where we suggested that the others had been brought back. That was followed by the epilogue.
And then something interesting happened.
We began to hear from readers who either didn’t like the ending or were confused by it. Or in some cases, both.
Long story short, most readers we spoke with thought that the only person to make it back to Earth was Luca, now transformed by the vial. While many readers said they liked the ending as it was, we didn’t like that the ending was so ambiguous.
If people are confused at the end of this season, we didn’t do our job.
Additionally, some readers felt that there wasn’t much closure to the first half of the series. It’s one thing to leave people hanging on a cliffhanger, which we love to do, but this was not that. We wanted to deliver satisfying endings to several storylines and failed to do so because we over-thought the ending and scrapped out original idea out of fear of dragging things out.
In other words…
We screwed up.
While I think we did a good job of delivering answers to most of the questions we’d put forth at the start of the series, we didn’t write a good ending.
So Sean and I got back to work, writing the original endings we’d talked about, and hired an editor last minute to proofread the nearly 2,500 words.
Unfortunately, I don’t know of a quick, easy way to ensure that you can download a new version of Episode 18. So we created a new REVISED Episode 18 (what you’re reading now). We’re making that episode FREE on Amazon for five days, so everyone will have a chance to download a new version at no cost. If we could make it free longer, we would. But we only get five days.
In uploading the new book, I believe we’ll have to take down the original book so as not to violate Amazon’s KDP Select terms. We don’t want to double dip with the same book twice. I believe that Amazon will keep the original sales page up, along with whatever reviews we received. I’m fine with that. I don’t want to whitewash our reviews, as they (and you who write them) help us see what we’re doing right and when we’ve gone wrong.
Additionally, we’ll have the new ending in the Season Three Compilation. And we’ll be putting the ending on our website at http://collectiveinkwell.com/season-three-new-ending where you can either read it there or download a separate .mobi file of just the ending. We’re also emailing everyone on our newsletter list to let our Goners know that the new ending is available and how to get it.
We’re so grateful to be in the age of digital publishing, where we can make this right within a few days — something we never could have done with print publishing.
So to everyone who hated the original ending or were confused by it, we apologize. We spend hundreds of hours on each episode trying to tell the best story we can, and hate letting you down.
We hope you’ve found this revised edition, and that it delivers the ending we should have written the first time. You deserve the best ending we can give you.
And I think that in the end, this screwup may have even led to an even better, well, ending. We hope you love it as much as we do.
In closing, Thank you…
We’re grateful to those who let us know of the confusion and unsatisfying ending.
Thank you also to everyone who loved the episode as-is, and to all who have followed us on this adventure during the past year!
Thank you for reading,
David Wright
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COMING SOON…
2012 is the year of the serial, and we’ve got some great stories coming your way — a new episode (or short story) every week all year long!
Here’s a look at what’s coming…
What Would Boricio Do?: A Dark Crossings short story featuring Boricio Wolfe (before the events of Yesterday’s Gone).
Z 2134 (the post-zombie serial thriller): One of our most common questions is when are we gonna write a zombie story. We’ve been wanting to for a while, but wanted to do it right. Z 2134 is that tale — think The Hunger Games meets The Walking Dead.
Available Darkness: We’re revisiting our first novel, Available Darkness, and giving it a fresh coat of paint and making it a proper serial. If you’ve already read it, you won’t miss anything if you skip the revised edition (except a more tightly plotted, better told story). Following the first season, we’re going right into Available Darkness: Season Two.
WhiteSpace: Coming this winter, WhiteSpace: Season Two.
ForNevermore: Coming this winter (possibly early next year) ForNevermore: Season Two.
Dark Crossings: More Dark Crossings stories and the second compilation of short stories with killer endings.
WANNA BE FIRST TO KNOW WHAT’S NEXT & GET AN UPDATE WHEN WE PUBLISH EACH WEEK? SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE NEWSLETTER AND BECOME A GONER TODAY!
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Sean Platt is the co-author of the Yesterday’s Gone, ForNevermore, and Available Darkness series, in addition to the novels Four Seasons and the children’s book, Penny to a Million.
In addition to being a regular contributor for Copyblogger.com, the Web’s premier content marketing site, Sean has written copy for some of the largest writing and lifestyle blogs on the Web.
A new breed of publisher, Sean writes and publishes nonfiction and fiction in several genres ranging from children’s books to horror. Sean is a co-founder of the publishing imprint Collective Inkwell Media, along with David.
He is available for speaking events aimed at writers, publishers, and creative entrepreneurs, as well as for individual consultation.
Sean is living the writer's dream in Ohio with his wife and two children.
Connect with Sean at:
[email protected]
http://twitter.com/seanplatt
http://collectiveinkwell.com
http://facebook.com/CollectiveInkwellPublishing
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David W. Wright is a former newspaper reporter and cartoonist. He is the co-author of the Yesterday’s Gone, ForNevermore, and Available Darkness series. He is also working on an illustrated children’s book for preschoolers (which may or may not come out before his son is out of preschool.)
You should avoid feeding David after midnight, getting him wet, or exposing him to bright light.
He writes about Collective Inkwell stuff at:
http://CollectiveInkwell.com
He blogs and rants about writing, pop culture, and other stuff at:
http://DavidwWright.com
David lives on the East Coast with his wife, his four year old son, and the world’s most pooping-est cat.
Connect with David at:
[email protected]
http://twitter.com/thedavidwwright
http://collectiveinkwell.com
http://davidwwright.com
http://facebook.com/CollectiveInkwellPublishing
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Our Books
Yesterday’s Gone Series — the post-apocalyptic serial
Episodes 1-12 (available in single episode format)
Season One Compilation (Episodes 1-6)
Season Two Compilation (Episodes 7-12)
Season Three (Episodes 13-18)
Season Four (Summer 2013)
Available Darkness — the new breed of vampire thriller
Season 1 (Coming August 2012)
Season 2 (Coming October 2012)
Z 2134 — the new zombie serial thriller
Episode 1 Coming in August 2012
ForNevermore Series — the dark fantasy serial
Episodes 1-6 (available in single format)
Season One Compilation (Episodes 1-6)
Season Two coming winter 2012/early 2013
WhiteSpace Series — the sci-fi/horror serial
WhiteSpace: Episode 1 — May 1, 2012
WhiteSpace: Episode 2 — May 8, 2012
WhiteSpace: Episode 3 — May 15, 2012
WhiteSpace: Episode 4 — May 22, 2012
WhiteSpace: Episode 5 — May 29, 2012
WhiteSpace: Episode 6 — June 5, 2012
WhiteSpace: Season One Compilation — June 12, 2012
Season Two — coming winter 2012
Dark Crossings Collections
Book 1 - Six Short Stories. Killer Endings (includes the short stories — Pull The Trigger, Respero Dinner, Chris Wakes Up, The Watcher, Diner Faded, The Visitor)
Book 2 — coming soon
Dark Crossing Short Stories
Are We There Yet?
If You Don’t Finish Reading This, Then Everyone You Know Will Die
For a complete and most up-to-date list of our available books, visit:
http://collectiveinkwell.com/our-books
The Darkness is Back
AVAILABLE DARKNESS: THE SERIES
We’re rewriting the first book of Available Darkness this August, releasing it as a proper serial (and a newly revised full season compilation with new content and author’s notes). We’ll be changing some of the story structure, but not what actually happened. So if you already read Available Darkness, you will not have missed anything. But if you’ve not yet read it, we’re aiming to improve the story (our first novel together) using a lot of the pacing and storytelling techniques we’ve learned with Yesterday’s Gone, to make for a better overall reading experience.
Then we’re jumping right into the long anticipated Available Darkness: Season Two in October.
THE DARKNESS HAS AWOKEN
FBI Special Agent Caleb Baldwin is on the hunt for a serial killer who has left a trail of burned bodies. One of those victims – his wife. As he gets closer to finding the killer, he falls deeper into an elaborate conspiracy.
A man wakes buried alive with no memory of who or what he is. In his pocket, a note: “Avoid the sunlight and don’t touch anybody.” Now he is being hunted by the FBI while trying to remember his monstrous past. He must control the darkness within before it consumes him and the child whose life he must protect.
11-year-old Abigail was dying slowly each day as the prisoner of a sick man. Until she is saved by the most unlikely of heroes – a vampire with a deadly touch. He is her only hope, and she may hold the key to unlocking the memories of his hidden past.
Past, present, fate, and future are on a collision course as the hours of AVAILABLE DARKNESS are ticking away and a force greater than anything the world has ever seen threatens humanity.
Available Darkness is the first book in an epic journey that reinvents vampire mythology with a fast paced, character-driven thriller that blends action, mystery, fantasy, and horror in an addictive, tragically romantic story.
SEASON ONE COMING IN AUGUST
SEASON TWO COMING IN OCTOBER
Sign up for our Goner’s mailing list and get an update the minute Available Darkness returns!
http://collectiveinkwell.com/be-a-goner
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